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Asrock A780FullDisplayPort Socket AM2+ Motherboard

Posted by on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 - 6:21pm

Today, the board we will be tackling is the A780FullDisplayPort which is based on the AMD 780G/SB700 chipset. This new board looks to be competing for the title of the ultimate mATX motherboard with its integrated graphics that will support now and future DirectX 10 titles. And if this doesn’t supply you with enough video processing power a higher end graphic accelerator can be added. This is only one thing the A780FullDisplay has to offer. What are the others……read on.

Introduction

It seems we are getting back on the AMD boat here at Pro-Clockers. We have been asked by a several companies to test some of their latest socket AM2 motherboards. From the number of requests seems things are moving up for AMD. The first motherboard we will be testing here today will be from our old friends at Asrock.

Asrock reputation is one of solid and stable motherboards at a price that is far less than manufacturer on the market. And it seems that Asrock manages this without having to rob us of features. In many cases you get more from their mainboards than some of the Tier 1 guys. For instance a few of the last motherboards I have reviewed from Asrock have Wi-Fi within the included bundle. This is only something I have seen from ASUS.

Today, the board we will be tackling is the A780FullDisplayPort which is based on the AMD 780G/SB700 chipset. This new board looks to be competing for the title of the ultimate mATX motherboard with its integrated graphics that will support now and future DirectX 10 titles. And if this doesn’t supply you with enough video processing power a higher end graphic accelerator can be added. This is only one thing the A780FullDisplay has to offer. What are the others……read on.

Packaging and contents

When it comes to packing in the goodies to Asrock board came up short. We were only greeted by the standard of cabling and software drivers. One thing we did feel a little excited about was the Display Port card.

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We all see a microATX motherboard as a budget board and we also see Asrock as a low price alterative to some of the other motherboard manufacturers out there. Well if you put the two together you get the A780FullDisplayport motherboard. For a while now I have been looking heavily at mATX as I don’t think I need a ton power in my everyday system. And for anyone in the same boat this board may be an option.

DisplayPort is nothing new to many of us but it is great that Asrock makes it afford for anyone that needs to support dual displays. And even with the Radeon 3200 integrated into the board the end-user has the option to ante up for a higher end GPU. If you decide to pony up for the extra graphic card you will still have two additional PCI and one PCIe 1x slots to do with what you need. But I would not underestimate the power for 512mb of onboard graphics for a workstation.

One good thing that I see with this board is the fact there are four DIMM slots and not just two that I have seen on many of the ECS motherboards lately. This is good for eight gigs of DDR2 at 800MHz.

How do six SATA ports sound? Well the A780 has that much which would support raids 0, 1, and 10. A couple of USB and firewire ports add to the useable levels of this board. We were not fortunate enough to get eSATA ports in this model.

It seems that we will not get Asrock to move the ATX connection. Like all their other mainboards it is still located behind the I/0 ports.

For cooling you will not have to worry about any fan whine as the A780 uses passive heat sinks to control the 780G chipset. For a hefty upgrade path the chipset supports all the current AM2 and AM2+ processors.

The rear I/O area has all one would need to make an awesome HTPC setup. On the back of the board are two monitor ports which is the standard VGA and the higher definition DVI. This alone with the add-in card that supports a HDMI you have all the video options carried.

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Ram results

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HDD results

Futuremark PCmark05 Build 1.1.0 PCMark®05 is everything you need to reliably and easily measure the performance of your PC and determine its strengths and weaknesses. With PCMark05, you will be able to select the optimal upgrades for your existing PC, or choose the right new PC that fits your specific needs. This easy-to-use product gives you the same tools and knowledge that virtually every professional tester in the industry uses.

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Video and Gaming results

Futuremark 3DMark06 Build 1.0.2 3DMark®06 is the worldwide standard in advanced 3D game performance benchmarking. A fundamental tool for every company in the PC industry as well as PC users and gamers, 3DMark06 uses advanced real-time 3D game workloads to measure PC performance using a suite of DirectX 9 3D graphics tests, CPU tests, and 3D feature tests. 3DMark06 tests include all new HDR/SM3.0 graphics tests, SM2.0 graphics tests, AI and physics driven single and multiple cores or processor CPU tests and a collection of comprehensive feature tests to reliably measure next generation gaming performance today. Futuremark's exclusive Online ResultBrowser web service tracks and compares 3DMark06 scores.

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We started the testing with a WattsUp Pro meter to measure watts use by the components listed above. And we used a standard digital multimeter to measure the rails of the power supply. To implement a load on the system, we ran Futuremark 3DMark06 at the highest settings with SuperPi and OCCT running in the background.

Overclocking

Not too bad considering who this board is made for and for what it is used for. Dropping the multiplier to 5x we were able to get the HTT to 349MHz.

Conclusion

It seems that Asrock is making a name for themselves far beyond the one they already have. The recent announcements have bought on some impressions that they are moving more in to the higher end motherboard market. For those that fear Asrock has forgotten about the budget computer user have no fear as the A780FullDisplayPort is just the motherboard the budget minded user would like. The A780FullDisplayPort offers a lot in the form of features. The main option and the reasons behind this board are the multi-port combinations for video purposes.

The rest of the features of this board we will favor the HTPC and mini house server user. This is one of the few boards we have seen with more than four SATA fours, six to be exact. And there is also support for raids 0, 1 and 10. Along with the integrated 3200 GPU chipset you have up to 512MB of video memory to power your LCD or dual monitor setup.

The A780Full has one of the best memory settings setup I have ever seen in a mATX motherboard. Another look at the ram setting screen proofs this.

In the areas of overclocking many will not be too impressed. The BIOS isn’t really geared to get the most out of any processor but you can get some performance bump with what is offered. Just don’t have high hope. Then again Asrock never marketed this board as the end all in the overclocking arena.